OUR OPINION: A return to community parenting

Wednesday

May 7, 2014 at 5:30 AM

We don’t know why some young people engage in risky behavior and others don’t. But perhaps if adults reminded them again and again that actions do have consequences, sometimes fatal, young people might stop and re-evaluate their actions.

We’re relieved that the front-page story in the weekend Patriot Ledger was about the Scituate Police Department’s efforts to prevent teens and young adults from taking a popular 25-foot dive off of local cliffs into frigid waters and not about someone dying from it. We don’t like reporting on dead kids.

It’s disappointing that the front page of The Sunday Enterprise featured two teens, 16 and 17, arrested and charged in connection with two arson fires and suspected in several others. The charges are a result of two mailbox fires, though Fire Chief Lance Benjamino said the boys are also suspected of two camping trailer fires, a brush fire and an automobile fire. A court will decide their guilt or innocence.

Thankfully, nobody died in these cases. But a life could have been lost.

In Scituate, it’s hard to fathom that those who grew up near the Atlantic don’t understand its ferocity, and how it’s often unforgiving of ignorance and contemptuous of bravado. We ask ourselves why these local teens and young adults are pressuring each other via social media to take what they call the “polar plunge.”

To jump or dive 25 feet into waters that every New Englander knows are frigid this time of year and where the currents are notorious, and to do so on private, sparsely developed property that’s difficult for emergency personnel to access, well, that’s not a dare, that’s a death wish.

A 17-year-old almost died last Thursday when he jumped from the cliffs into the water and the current took him, all while three of his friends videotaped the jump. They couldn’t answer his cries for help. Fortunately, the ocean was generous that day and spat him back onto shore where police and fire found him suffering from hypothermia.

We understand that otherwise good kids and young adults do stupid things. We’ve also read the groundbreaking 2011 study on young adult brains that found that the frontal cortex isn’t fully formed until the early 20s, meaning impulsivity is high and the understanding of consequences is low.

As the National Institute of Mental Health says about this age group: “Mortality rates jump between early and late adolescence. Rates of death by injury between ages 15 to 19 are about six times that of the rate between ages 10 and 14. Crime rates are highest among young males and rates of alcohol abuse are high relative to other ages.”

Yet elsewhere we have stories of young people who do understand cause and effect, to the benefit of society. There’s the Brockton Girl Scout Troop 80324 whose teenage members spent a beautiful Sunday cheering on participants in the Brockton cancer walk.

There’s scientist and Stoughton High School grad Dr. Robert Lanza, recently named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, who at 13 was conducting experiments on chicken DNA. His current work could lead to a treatment for Alzheimer’s.

There are the seniors from Marshfield High School who, while out volunteering in their community, spotted a fire at a local kennel last Friday and helped move the dogs and cats to safety.

We don’t know why some young people engage in risky behavior and others don’t. But perhaps if adults reminded them again and again that actions do have consequences, sometimes fatal, young people might stop and re-evaluate their actions.

That’s how it used to be. Adults who noticed someone else’s child misbehaving would step in and speak up. No more. That “it takes a village” approach is lost even though it proved effective.

It did last week when one of our reporters was in Scituate getting a tour of the cliffs from Scituate Police Chief Michael Stewart. Dressed in plain clothes, Stewart noticed two young women headed to the cliffs to fulfill a dare. He headed them off and reminded them of the dangers. As one of the young women said, “That is so scary,” before both turned around and left.

We agree.

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